


Sunset

by NylonRabbit



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Force Visions (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mpreg, Non-Graphic Smut, Planet Destruction, Pregnant Armitage Hux, Starkiller Base (Star Wars), That's Not How The Force Works (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:46:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27788458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NylonRabbit/pseuds/NylonRabbit
Summary: As the planet they're stranded on crumbles around them, Kylo has one final gift for Hux.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 18
Kudos: 89





	Sunset

The sky was red.

The ever-increasing heat of the air was becoming stifling now as the planet’s atmosphere began to fry. The terrain beneath his feet felt like hot coals threatening to burn through the thick steel and rubber of his boots as he sped across it as fast as he could. Through the steam and mist rising from the coastline, as the ocean began to boil, Hux could finally make out Ren’s approaching silhouette, speeding towards him at almost twice the pace.

And despite this desperate urgency to reach his knight, there still remained a sense of painfully futile self-preservation in his paces, one arm still gripped protectively around his abdomen, protecting the helpless lifeform within. Even now, as the sky and earth crumbled around him, Hux felt a need to continue to protect his and Ren’s offspring. Although, he supposed, what did any of that really matter now? The poor creature would never see the light of day, it’d never see his face, or Ren’s. He’d never get to hold it in his arms, name it, watch it grow up and thrive, live the carefree, happy life Hux himself had been denied from such a young age…

It wouldn’t be long before the ground that they were speeding across to one another on would be obliterated into the atmosphere, and there’d be nothing left of either of them but smouldering embers, scattered into the outer galaxy like stardust. A blip in time, so insignificant they may as well have never been at all. The bitterness Hux felt at this notion threatened to consume him entirely and very nearly stop him in his tracks. _How could all of this have been for nothing?_ His lifelong servitude to the Order had meant _nothing._ He’d given everything he had to it, and this was his repayment? Betrayed by his men, and left here to die on a dissolving planet, destroyed by a weapon of his very own creation?

Perhaps he’d been too trusting to assume he had some semblance of ‘friendship’ with Mitaka. With the lieutenant’s help, the plan had been for Hux and Ren to go missing in action during a staged ambush on a known resistance hideout. The truth was, once he and Ren had learned of the pregnancy, they knew they wouldn’t be able to keep it. Snoke would have sooner had them both killed than allow them to play happy families behind the cold, steel doors of their quarters. 

Over the past few months, it had been a struggle to keep their relationship secret as it was, draining an inordinate amount of Ren’s force energy to prevent Snoke from tapping into his mind and seeing the both of them together in some desperate, stolen embrace--that first, heated row in the secluded corridor, the subsequent angry fucking underneath the metal stairwell. Hux could still remember the release, gasping for breath and digging his nails in tight, Ren’s ragged breathing as he slammed him up against the wall, the sting of the dim-green glow of light making it all seem like some sort of bizarrely pleasant nightmare. And then there’d been the last time. Yesterday. And it had been the softest, most devastatingly peaceful moment of his entire life. In the quiet sanctuary of his quarters, Ren had never held him so gently before, fingers running through his auburn hair as he ran kisses up and down his body, finally planting a kiss on his stomach and promising him that tomorrow, tomorrow they’d be free. No longer would they have to live in fear of Snoke, gasping under the thumb of the First Order…

But as Hux had witnessed the familiar blast in the sky and the last of the First Order’s ships flying away out of the atmosphere just moments later, he knew at once they’d never get that chance to be free. Mitaka had betrayed them, that backstabbing little wretch had known that the weapon was aimed at the planet before they’d even entered its atmosphere.

Still, Hux continued to run, one arm still cradling his small bump. A tiny, pathetic part of him wished for the hypothetical. Why couldn’t they have just left him and Ren alone here? Why did they have to turn the weapon on to them? They’d no longer be the First Order’s problem after all, and surely _this_ could have been their haven...

 _No._ Hux shook the weak longing from his mind. He should have known it would end this way. People like himself and Ren didn’t get happy endings. _Why would they?_

_‘Hux!’_

_‘Ren…?’_

The smoke and ash cleared as a figure fought their way through it, and Hux had been so taken up in his thoughts he nearly ran straight into Ren. He felt Ren’s huge hands grab hold of his slender arms, closing his eyes to shield them from the dust and debris and heat. He allowed Ren to gather him up in his arms and hoist him up into a bridal carry, clutching onto the other man’s tattered robes as Ren began to pick up the pace once again. Hux’s eyes remained screwed shut, the smell of burning wood and the sound of falling trees and brick and the smell of burning chemicals flooding his senses now. He was shaking, and he feared if he dug his fingernails any deeper into Ren’s chest his nails may break off entirely.

Finally, Ren’s pace slowed, and Hux felt his senses were no longer under attack as they had been just moments before. He opened his eyes as Ren carefully lowered him to the ground to find he had managed to get them to some sort of relative shelter at the entrance of one of the many sea caves aligning the shore. Struggling to catch his breath, Ren slid down beside him, and for a moment, all they could do was stare out at the sight before them. The sky was by now almost as bright, burning and red as Ren’s saber, and the ocean below it bubbled and steamed. And through the waves of ash and smoke, Hux could make out the stray rock formations littering the beach beginning to heat and crack. He swallowed back a sudden gulp of terror, his heart filled with sadness and regret. He brought a hand to his bump, only to find Ren’s hand was already there. Ren was holding him.

‘I’m sorry, little one,’ Hux swallowed as he addressed their child, eyes burning with tears now and voice hitching in his throat. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t save us.’

He felt Ren pull him in closer, squeezing his arm, shushing him as he brushed some of the sweat drenched strands of hair away from Hux’s forehead.

‘It’s alright, my love. You don’t need to be sorry for anything,’ Ren whispered.

Hux looked up to Ren then, eyes bleary, tears still falling down his dirtied cheeks. ‘Don’t I? Don’t _we?_ We failed, Ren.’

‘We’re together, aren’t we?’ Ren murmured, running his hand over Hux’s stomach and kissing his forehead. ‘All of us. Away from that place. We escaped.’

‘Ren, you know that’s not…it’s not…’ Hux wanted to be angry, wanted to bite Ren’s head off at the ludicrously simplistic way he was looking at all of this. But he couldn’t, voice trailing off as he lay his head against Ren’s shoulder, taking in his comfortingly familiar musky scent. After all, this would be the last time he got to smell him, be held by him, hear his voice…

‘Kylo, I…’

‘Shh,’ Ren whispered then, taking his hand away from Hux’s middle and placing it over Hux’s forehead. ‘Just relax. Close your eyes. You’ll see it all in a second…’

Hux refrained from asking any further questions, shutting his eyes once again, allowing his other senses to take over. He felt the unbearable heat, he listened to the horror of their crashing and crumbling surroundings, the stifling, now almost unbreathable air, staring into darkness…

And then suddenly, all of that was no more. And Ren was right. He could see something else entirely now.

A small cottage with a thatched roof nestled itself nicely at the edge of a forest, long grass dotted with flowers, broken apart only by a winding cobbled path. Hux and Kylo watched on as their two children darted across the path and through the long-grass just ahead of them – a girl with emerald green eyes and long wavy black hair and a boy, slightly younger with equally wavy red hair and blue eyes. The two were engaged in a very competitive game of tag. Hux smiled fondly to Kylo, he looked different now, his hair grown out to his shoulders, dressed in casual civilian clothing, his smile seemingly genuine and happy, no longer the contemptuous sneer he seemed to have offered up daily to most throughout his life.

‘They both take after you, you know,’ Hux sighed, hand entwined with Ren’s.

‘And why do you say that?’ Ren chuckled. He too looked different, already long hair now pulled back and plaited half way down his back, expression also softened by their years of living a life of peaceful domesticity together.

‘Why do I say that?’ Hux raised an eyebrow and laughed. ‘Look at them, I don’t think even you were that competitive when we first met!’

The blue sky above them shone brightly, and suddenly, Hux found himself looking upon a new scene now. The interior of their cottage, he assumed, himself, Ren and their two children, now adults, all sat around a dining table, laughing and sharing a meal together.

It all moved in flashes, faster and faster, and yet Hux could feel and experience every moment of it deeply.

He saw their daughter, a suitcase in hand, standing outside their cottage now. She hugged them both, hugged her brother, and set off down the cobbled path as they waved her goodbye. He saw their son run into an unseen stranger in the woods as he journeyed to the well. Flashes of what looked like a small, woodland ceremony, their son exchanging rings with one of the planet natives as they shared a kiss. Hux and Ren looking on with pride, their daughter beside them clapping and cheering.

Flash after flash of what felt like memories flooded Hux’s mind, simultaneously new and old, as if these were memories he’d had for decades suddenly being rediscovered. And within them, he felt it all. The love, the happiness, the anticipation, the worry, the relief, the peacefulness. It all felt so incredibly real to him, he barely had time to question how or why. All he knew was that it felt like a life he’d lived.

Finally, the pace seemed to slow. Fifty years or so must have passed by now, and Hux and Kylo sat out on the old garden swing their son and daughter had built for them many years ago, their hair greyed, skin decorated with lines and wrinkles now as they watched the orangey-pink hue of the sunset cast over the long-grass and cobbled path, illuminating the colourful vegetation surrounding their cottage. And all Hux knew was, in that moment, they were happy. Hux lay his head against Kylo’s shoulder and watched the sky.

‘That’s it Hux,’ Kylo whispered, kissing the top of his head. ‘Just watch the sunset…’

Outside of Hux’s force dream, the planet was nearing collapse, the sky becoming a wall of bright red glaring heat, but he was blissfully asleep in Kylo’s arms now, a smile on his face. Kylo gave him one final kiss on the cheek, and watched the sunset.


End file.
